


Squid Sisters' Stories

by CrustyMerryBicycle



Category: Splatoon
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Family, Feels, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Love, Multi, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-09-22 05:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17054306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrustyMerryBicycle/pseuds/CrustyMerryBicycle
Summary: Ever wondered where the Squid Sisters came from? Not just their hometown, but their roots, their ties, their adventures...their stories. What made them who they are and how they were shaped into the Inkopolis News Anchors and IDOLS we know and love? From childhood to teen years, and onto their rise to stardom! Chapter 1-7 is childhood, so feel free to jump in at chapter 8 if you'd just like to see more recent/relevant parts!





	1. Prepare for the Mission!

**Author's Note:**

> Wow! I've been working on this fic for a long time now, so guess it's time to post! Just a disclaimer, whether or not it's needed, this is fan FICTION and, while I try to avoid continuity errors wherever I find some to avoid, some of this may not be 100% accurate or fit into the story line from Splatoon, but I'm doing my best! :) This will be a LONG fic, lemme tell ya! And I hope to post regularly enough to keep everyone satisfied (hopefully once or twice a week or so?). Comments and suggestions are always welcome, but no offense if I don't use them, as a lot of this fic is already written and I can't say for certain if it's something I could go back and change later. Anyway, happy reading and I hope you get your Squid Sisters fix! (lmao not possible they're so good :o)

Chapter 1-

It was an average day in the Hotaru home. Father was off to work, Mother was mending some clothes for a neighbor, and little Marie sat quietly coloring a picture. It was a warm summer day and they had the back door and all the windows pulled open to keep the breeze from the hills around them circulating the air in the house. The shrubs outside rustling and occasional soft thumping of wheels on the dirt road at the bottom of the hill were the only sounds passing through. All was peaceful and quiet…that is, until another young inkling came running up the path behind their home. 

“Mariiiiieeeeeeee~!” came the squeaky voice everyone recognized perfectly. “Yay! Yay! Come out and play!” 

“Hi cos!” Marie greeted as a dark haired inkling girl reached the top of the steep hill and practically collapsed through their back door, finally stopping to catch her breath. “Mother, can I go out and play?”

“Of course, dear. You both stay together and don’t leave the yard without telling me first,” the adult in their presence warned and Marie beamed while nodding vigorously. “And change into play clothes! Your father would have a fit if you got that nice yukata all filthy.”

“Oops! That reminds me that I didn’t wear play clothes! Auntie, can I borrow some of Marie’s?” Callie asked, batting her eyes and already slipping off her shoes to enter the house. Mrs. Hotaru nodded and the two girls cheered and scurried off down the hallway.

Marie pulled out a grey t-shirt and overalls for her cousin and a matching green pair of shorts and tank top for herself. They helped one another untie the ribbons on their yukatas and quickly got into the new clothes so they could slip back out and race outside.

“Yay! Yay! What a beautiful day!” Callie cheered once they were back out in the sunlight.

“I’m happy my cousin came over to play!” Marie sing-songed along and they both began giggling. “What should we do today?”

“Secret hideout?” Callie suggested and Marie’s eyes widened. 

“But mother said to tell her if we were leaving, and if we told her where it was it wouldn’t be secret!”

“She said if we were leaving the yard, and I think it’s technically your yard, right?” Marie contemplated this briefly, and the nodded with determination. “Yay! Come on then!” Callie waved her forth and started cartwheeling down the hill. Such a show off, Marie though, a little jealous of her but not enough to admit it. Instead she just raced to catch up, tripping and tumbling a couple of feet before Callie stopped and went back to check on her. Not wanting to look like the weaker squid, Marie decided to tuck and roll and beat her cousin to the bottom of the hill. Callie quickly followed suit and landed right next to her cousin at the bottom, both of them dizzy and laughing up a storm.

“Whoa, it’s like the sky is spinning!” Marie giggled. 

“It’s like the ground is spinning,” Callie contested.

“It’s like the air is spinning!”

“I think we’re just spinning! Haha! C’mon!”

Callie grabbed hold and pulled Marie to her feet. They both stumbled a bit for a moment and then raced around the side of the hill furthest from the road. There was a little creek back there where the girls had and would spend many days splashing their feet and scavenging for sunken treasures, but today they had more important matters to attend. Just across the bridge there was a dusting of bamboo and some tall trees beginning the transition into forest. The girls held each others’ hands and yelled “YOO-HOOO!!” in unison into the deep forest. The trees rustled as some birds took the sky to escape these noisy creatures and they both grinned. 

“No one answered,” Marie concluded after a pause.

“That means the coast is clear!” Callie said and pulled her cousin along into the thick of bamboo. Just a little ways further, barely out of sight of the creek, the girls had their own secret hideaway set up. They had a tattered and muddy blanket spread across the ground and rocks on all the edges to hold it down through whatever rain or wind may try to mess with their Shangri-La. 

“So what are we gonna do today, Cal?” Marie asked.

“Wow, there’s so much to do! Can you even imagine? My birthday is coming up in just more than a week, then school starts back three days after that, and you’ll be in school now too! You know what that means?”

“We can walk to school together in the mornings! And when you have homework, I will too and I won’t be so bored when Mother is watching you and we can’t play because you’re busy! And I’ll get my very own lunch to go like a school picnic! And I’ll get to go to class and learn new things and drink from a water fountain like at the park and wear matching clothes every day and-"  
“Yeah, yeah, that’s all good and well, but you’re missing the bigger picture!” Marie cocks her head and Callie sighs. “Obviously I didn’t prepare you for this mission as well as I thought I had, Agent 2. Have I completely forgotten to tell you about all the important things in school!? You’ll be meeting lots of new people, kids and adults, and you’ve got to remember as many names as you can so they’ll remember yours, first of all. It’s okay if you forget some, but do your best, okay?” Marie nods, now intently focused on her cousin’s instructions. “You can’t throw temper tantrums anymore, or else…you just can’t-”

“I don’t ever do that anymore!” Marie protest and Callie side eyes her, putting the younger inkling back in line with just a look. “Well, I don’t ever mean to. I just can’t stop it sometimes when I get really angry!”

“But that’s the problem! I’ve been worried about this, too, but I think I have a solution, for temporary anyway. If you ever feel like you’re a boiling pot about bubble over, instead of kicking and screaming and shaking your whole body up, just shake your hands and shake off all the anger!”

Callie demonstrates, holding her hands up and flopping them around and Marie imitates her. “How is that gonna help?”

“It’s like you’re shaking off the mad parts of you without flailing your whole body, and then if anyone asks what you’re doing, you can say your hand was stiff or you were just dancing a little or something. If it doesn’t work I’ll try to think of something else, but just give it a try, okay? And speaking of dancing, that brings us to another important part of school: the talent show! It’s at the end of every school year and we’ll be right at the beginning, so we’ve got plenty of time but we can’t waste any of it! Now that you’re finally gonna be there too, we can enter it together and show Calamari County our stuff! We’re gonna blow the roof off that school!”

“Yeah!” Marie agreed, eyes glinting and mouth grinning. “We should practice right now!” 

“I couldn’t agree more!”

The girls settled into their usual spots in the fort and sang versus to lullabies and nursery rhymes they’d always sang, even toying with their own lyrical additions. Nothing spectacular, but to have come from the minds of a five and seven year old respectively, they could’ve melted anyone’s heart who may have been listening. The two harmonized with each other so seamlessly and pleasantly that even the birds they had scared away early settled back into their perches to listen in.


	2. A Birthday Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay of posting! Holidays have been crazy, but here I am with a new chapter! Hope you enjoy!

“Happy birthday, Callie!” Marie exclaimed, bursting into the Aori house with her parents close on her heels. 

“Marie, you’re supposed to wait to be invited in!” her mother scolded, but she was already in the entrance hall fumbling out of her shoes.

“But it’s my cousin’s birthday! I’m so excited and I love her so much!”

“Marie? I’m in my bedroom, be out in a second!” Callie called through a closed door.

The young green inkling was about to take off into the house when her father caught her by her tiny arm and pulled her around to look him in the eye. “Hey, I know this is your cousin and aunt and uncle’s house, but that doesn’t mean you can forget your manners. I won’t have my daughter running rampant like a maniac. Even if the other adults don’t mind those antics, I do. Remember yourself, Marie, understand?” He asked in a soft but firm tone.

Marie nodded, looking slightly downcast but still not entirely cured of her youthful excitement. “Yes sir,” she answer firmly and waited till he let her go to straightened her shoes next to the door before padding, more slowly now, into the home.

“Welcome, Hotaru family!” Callie’s mother greeted enthusiastically as the three rounded the corner into the kitchen. “Sister, how are you? I’ve seen Marie so often this summer but you’re always at home with your projects!”

“I’m well, thank you!” Marie’s mother answered, exchanging a hug with their pleasantries. The adults began catching one another up and Marie stood neatly by their side, practically vibrating with contained excitement to wish her cousin a happy birthday in person.

“Welcome to my house! Yaaaa~y!” Callie’s voice came bursting into the room as fast as she did, immediately crushing her younger cousin with a hug that nearly knocked them both over. Both were giggling as they righted themselves and Callie greeted everyone else, receiving a “happy birthday” from both of Marie’s parents as she did.

“Oh, Callie, your yukata is practically crooked! Let me fix that for you,” Callie’s mother fussed, kneeling down to re-tie the disheveled ribbons her daughter had hastily fastened herself. “There, now that’s more like it.”

Callie beamed with gratitude and then grabbed her cousin by the wrist to pull her along to play. The girls entertained themselves in the living room for a little while bouncing a balloon back and forth between them until a familiar voice rang out from the front door.

“Yoo-hoo!! Does anyone know where I might find the two best granddaughters in the whole world?”

Callie and Marie squealed excitedly and ran for the front of the house. “Here we are! Here we are!” they yelled, running up to Cap’n Cuttlefish and springing forth to hug him from either side.

“No, no, the other two best granddaughters in the whole world!” He tisked, chuckling as he hugged the excited children back.

“Gramps!” Marie complained.

“We know you mean us! You don’t have any other granddaughters!” Callie finished, giving him a big smooch on the cheek.

“Oh, I’m only teasing, sillies! Step back and let me get a look at you both…bah! Who told either of you it was okay to grow so much while I wasn’t looking?! You’re half my height already, Callie! And you’re only seven!”

“Nu-uh! I’m EIGHT today!” Callie exclaimed.

“WHAT?! I thought I was here for MY birthday party!”

“Gramps, do you and Callie have the same birthday?” Marie asked, eyes wide with awe.

“No we don’t!” Callie protested.

“But it’s my birthday party! Just look at that cake your mom made for me,” the Cap’n said, gesturing broadly to the table in the dining room, adorned with streamers, presents, and a delicious looking chocolate cake with seafoam frosting.

“That’s my birthday cake!” Callie exclaimed.

“Oh, and I suppose those presents there are yours too?”

“Yes! Yes!” 

“Huh…well, then I guess you must be the squid I brought this present for!” their grandfather grinned, holding out a parcel wrapped in tan paper and tied with fishing wire. Certainly not as glamorous or aesthetic as the other gifts waiting in the dining room, but Callie’s eyes widened with wonder and excitement just the same.

“Can I open it now? Please oh please oh pleeeeeaaassee???” She begged, trying to grab it out of his hands.

“I don’t mind, but you’ll have to ask your parents!”  
“Mommyyyyyy~!” Callie hollered, bolting into the kitchen and dragging Marie along behind her, as she was most accustomed to doing when her cousin was present. “Presents! Presents! I wanna open presents!”

“Alright, squiddo,” Callie’s father grinned and placed a hand on her head as if that would stop her from springing up and down with excitement. “You don’t wanna have lunch first? Or cake?”

“No! Present time! Present time!”

“No time like the present!” Cap’n Cuttlefish added, joining the group in the kitchen and hugging both of his own daughters and their husbands lovingly.  
“Well I guess it’s settled then,” Callie’s mom said and her daughter squealed and pulled Marie along to sit beside her at the dining room table.

Once the others were seated, Callie set right in to tearing through her gifts. She received a pink jumper with white flowers from Marie’s mom, a bug catching net, kazoo, new school shoes, and a set of bracelets from her parents, some pink sparkly nail polish from Marie, and a floppy sunhat from Marie’s dad. Finally, their grandfather handed her over the parcel, which she unwrapped with much more care than the other gifts after being warned that she’d need to take very good care of the package’s contents. She screamed with delight and produced a black and silver camera from the parchment and held it up like a trophy.

“Dad, that looks like an adult camera! Are you sure she’s ready for that?” Mrs. Hotaru asked with a wary smile.

“Of course she is! As long as you take very careful care of it, Callie, that camera will last you a lifetime! It can take photos and videos, so I want you to start documenting all of you and Marie’s adventures to show them to me when I come home from my own!”

“Yes, yes, YES!” Callie cheered, setting the camera down to run over and hug her grandfather tightly around the neck. “Thank you! I’ll take very good care of it, I promise!”

…

Later that evening, Callie’s parents set up lawn chairs outside and lit a little bon fire. The family, along with an older anemone couple next door who had wandered over upon invitation to enjoy the company, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire, enjoying the peaceful sounds of crickets and crackling flames and quiet conversation amongst themselves. Callie was snapping shots of the fire and the group every couple of minutes, having spent the better part of the afternoon tinkering with her new camera to figure out how it worked, since her grandfather wasn’t a whole lot of help in the technological respect.

The girls played in the dark after their meal, trying out the new bug catcher on all the fireflies and crickets they could get their tiny hands on, playing on the swing-set Callie’s dad had put up a couple of summers ago as a former birthday present, and running around the spacious backyard until they were both tuckered out. With Callie taking refuge on her father’s lap by the fire and Marie on her mother’s, the little party began to quiet down.

“Well, girls, think you might bless us all with a song?” their grandfather asked them. Callie grinned at the request and Marie mimicked her expression, though with more tired looking eyes.

“What should we sing?” Marie asked.

“Any requests?” Callie finished.

“An old sea shanty!” Cap’n Cuttlefish stated and Callie shook her head.

“How about ‘Shooting Star Melody’?” Marie suggested a little timidly. It was a classic lullaby everyone knew, but hearing the quiet and melodic voices of those young cousins would give any song a deeper sense of wonder. With no opposition, Callie began the tune and her cousin joined in to harmonize after just a note or two’s delay.

“Out far away~ from all~ the city lights; There is a place~ where we~ can be… In such a grace-ful array in the night time; With a shoo~ting star me-lo-dy. If it’s too dark~ the stars~ will guide you; They will sing~ you slow-ly to sleep; In a voice~ so gentle and calm-ing; In a shoo~ting star me-lo-dy. Now close your eyes~ re-lax~ I’ll find you; In a place~ where you’ll al~ways find me; In the silence that I like to sleep in; No sound but the shooting star, me-lo-dy~.”

The two had their audience moved close to tears, the way their voices matched and wavered together in the most incredible harmony. There was a long moment of silence as everyone left the echoes of those two voices ring through the air and through their minds before daring to break that memory of a sound so sweet with a new sound taking it’s place. Callie’s dad kissed his daughter gently and sweetly on the forehead and their grandfather closed his eyes and smiled wistfully.

“The voices of two angels, it seems, has just sung to us all. You girls have a gift,” the Cap’n finally said quietly and both of his granddaughters beamed with delight. Marie yawned and rubbed her eyes a little as her mother slid her off her lap and onto her own two feel.

“Looks like it’s about bed time,” Callie’s mom observed, yawning for herself as well.

“Come on, let’s get you two settled in,” Callie’s dad said, standing up with his daughter in his arms and turning to carry her away from the fire. Marie caught up and stuck close behind him as he went to the little tent Marie and Cap’n Cuttlefish had pitched earlier for the two of them to have a backyard campout. Callie was set on the ground and the two of them crawled inside as Callie’s dad zipped the door closed behind them. “We’ll leave the door unlocked in case either of you wants to come in for bed. Goodnight, sweet hearts”

“Goodnight dad,” Callie yawned and wriggled into her pink sleeping bag.

“Goodnight Uncle Aori,” Marie said, following her cousin’s lead and crawling into her own green sleeping bag.

Callie’s dad left and they heard the sizzling of the fire being doused with water, meaning the grown-ups were likely dispersing outside and heading off to their respective beds. Their grandfather would stay at Callie’s house for the night and Marie’s parents headed off down the road back to their own home. Once all the adults had left, Marie sighed with content as the world became the silent and still picture of night she’d always been so fond of.

“Callie?” she spoke softly, turning on her side to face her cousin, who was already drifting off.

“Hm?”

“Gramps said to document all of our adventures on your new camera, right?”

“Mhm.”

“Well…what kind of adventures do you think we’ll have?”

“What do you mean?” Callie asked, now interested and blinking her eyes to wake herself back up enough to think and communicate properly.

“I don’t know…just…what if our adventures aren’t that good? They’ll never be as exciting as Gramps’s, will they?”

Callie shot up in her sleeping bag and took both of Marie’s hands in her own. “Marie, we’re gonna have a TON of adventures together! Almost every day will be an adventure! Sometimes we’ll have to look harder for them, and sometimes we’ll have to make our own, but there will always be one out there for us, okay?”

Marie smiled and nodded. Callie grinned and laid back down, snuggling up closer to her cousin. “Do you think we’ll ever live in the big city, with a different kind of melody than the shooting stars have?”

“I know we will. And that melody is gonna be our melody, when we’re famous singers and have concerts and shows and famous-inkling adventures every day.”

Marie smiled and wiggled her head under Callie’s arm so they were cuddled together in the tent, letting their daydreams lead them to slumber and hoping those same exciting dreams would continue through their sleep and keep their spirits high through all the days to come.


	3. Auditions

EIGHT MONTHS LATER

“Hi Marie!” Callie greeted her cousin as soon as she stepped out of her classroom door when she was let out for the day. “Want to come over today and make a music video? We really need to finish practicing for the talent show, since auditions are next week!”

“That sounds good,” Marie agreed, pulling the straps of her backpack over her little shoulders. 

Ever since learning how to work the recording part of her camera, Callie had been obsessed with making music videos, in which she’d set up the camera to have a designated area within the shot, start recording, and have her and Marie sing and dance within that designated area. After the recording was finished, they’d watch their performance together and critique each other’s performance and work on whatever they thought needed to be addressed together. They’d probably made upwards of a hundred videos together since Callie had received the camera eight months ago and really improved certain aspects of their choreography and vocals, in fact.

As the girls walked home together, they went over their newest self-composed song to make sure they both had the tune and lyrics memorized. Usually they just mimicked songs they heard on the radio or cd’s or somewhere, but once or twice they’d actually worked together to create some of their own material. It was nothing incredible, but for a seven and eight year old to have created it, there was certainly no shortage of talent and passion to be found between them and their songs.

Spring was well underway and all the two needed now was a good jacket, versus the layers and coats they’d been bundling up in for their walks to and from school together lately. Even still, it was too chilly to be out for long and the two went and got cozy in Callie’s room with a floor heater to defrost them for a moment before making their newest feature film.

Hours passed and the two filmed, watched, and re-filmed four times all the way through before they were 100% satisfied with the outcome. If they could just keep their performance up to par next time they ran it through, they’d be ready to perform their own original work at the school talent show. If not, Callie had decided they’d go with a different song they’d learned from somewhere else, but to sing their own song on their first performance would be outstanding!

Since it was getting dark, Marie decided to head home before her mother began to worry so they could both have time to do their homework before bedtime. They did promise one another, however, to do the lyrical parts as they walked to and from school and practice it with the dance routine on Saturday when Callie came over.

“I’m home!” Marie exclaimed when she entered through the back door, setting her backpack off to the side while she took off her jacket and shoes on the mat by the door.  
“Welcome home. Were you at the Aori’s home all this time?” her mother greeted her, not taking her eyes off the clothes she was mending. What had started out as a favor for a friend here and there had quickly turned Mrs. Hotaru into the town’s most acclaimed seamstress, keeping her at her sewing machine several hours a day, but bringing in good business that really helped since her father’s pay cut a few months ago.

“Yeah, we were practicing for the talent show. Our song is coming along really well and Callie thinks we’re gonna steal the show for sure! It’ll be our big debut!”

“That’s nice, dear. And what about homework?”

“I’ve only got a little, and it’s the easy stuff. Father, do you need help cooking dinner?”

“No, everything is about ready now. But hey, squiddo, let’s talk a second,” Mr. Hotaru said, taking the oven mitt off his hand and entering the room with the other two.

“What is it?” the young inkling asked, tilting her head a little and shrinking back the slightest bit, afraid that she’d done something wrong based on the serious atmosphere she was now picking up on.

“I just want to make sure you know that responsibility always comes before play time, right?”

“Yes sir. Callie and I were working really hard the whole time; I wasn’t letting her goof off at all today!” Marie stated proudly.

“That’s not exactly what I meant. Homework and your chores at home are your responsibility, Marie. Not singing and dancing.”

“But I have to practice or we might not get into the talent show and make our big debut!”

“You’ve got to understand, honey, that just making it into a talent show won’t secure you a future in anything. There’s a lot more to it than that. I know it’s fun to think about getting discovered or being famous, but the odds of that actually happening are so slim that you’ve got to remember to set your sights on something more reasonable.”

“But I-” Marie started, her tone rising a little as a telling sign of an oncoming outrage.

“We’re not saying it couldn’t happen,” her mother added quickly before she could begin getting angry and cause her father to do the same. “It’s just that you’ve always got to have a backup. You can’t be single focused in life or you might find that the path you were taking was the wrong one and you’re too far down it to go back and you don’t have an alternate route. We’re very proud of you for working so hard and we’re excited to see you blow everyone away in the talent show, but we’d be even more proud to see you work so hard on other things additionally. Understand?”

Marie felt hot angry tears threatening to pour from her eyes and used Callie’s technique of shaking her hands to distract her from the thought of being angry. She could see the pleading in her mother’s eyes, begging her to control herself for her own sake by not causing an upset with her father and used her distracting hand shaking to get her through the moment.

“I understand,” she said in an incredibly even tone, much to both of her parents shock and relief. “I’ll be doing my homework until dinner is ready in my room, then, if that’s okay.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea. Love you, squiddo,” her father said, his face softening as she picked up her backpack again and scooted around them both to get to the hallway leading to her bedroom.

“You too,” she said, careful to keep the waver out of her voice and her eyes averted so neither of them could see the tears beginning to pool. She shut her bedroom door very carefully to avoid slamming it and took deep breaths, pacing her bedroom and shaking her hands. Normally she would have thrown a fit and been on the floor kicking and screaming right about now, but distracting herself with other, less manic motions and thoughts seemed to be keeping her temper under control. Even still, she had that uneasy feeling in her gut, fists clenching and unclenching as if she was trying to decide if she could allow herself to punch at the floor or the wall or something, and tears burning down her scowling face.

She was angry with her father for saying such mean things, frustrated with Callie for being the older one and not taking the responsibility to have them sit down and do their homework or send Marie home sooner, and, most of all, upset with herself because she knew, now, that she was always bound to disappoint somebody. She was already terrified of performing in front of the teachers who would be conducting the audition and even more so the entire school if they made it in, but thought she might could get past that for Callie’s sake, but now she wasn’t even sure about that. 

…

The mornings following, Marie met Callie at the road in front of the Aori house, since it was closer to the school and waved timidly as her cousin bounded down the sidewalk in her direction and they fell into step beside each other in the direction of school. In order to keep from disappointing anyone, Marie had decided last night to not tell Callie about what her parents had said. She didn’t want her best friend to feel like she was pushing Marie into this- even though she would never be doing something like this of her own volition- or keeping her from something she should or could rather be doing, and she especially didn’t want to crush Callie’s dreams of being famous one day. Callie was definitely the bigger dreamer of the two, and though it had hurt for Marie to be faced with that reality, she could only imagine the woes her cousin would encounter at such an accusation.

“Marie, did you hear me?” Callie asks, nudging the smaller inkling in the side.

“Huh?”

“I asked if you wanted to practice our song,” Callie reiterated. 

“Oh. I have an itchy throat and don’t wanna make it hurt. Sorry, maybe on the way home.”

“Okay, hope it feels better soon! So anyway, last night Mama baked a seaweed lasagna and do you wanna know what my dad said it looked like?”

“What?” Marie asked, trying to sound interested and hold back the sadness and fear that had been building about everything on her mind.

“He said it looked like a slimy sea monster! Haha! It was so funny I fell out of my chair laughing! I almost had to spit out my drink! Because the cheese made it all gluey and stretchy and she put whole cherry tomatoes in it that looked like angry red eyes when they were cooked and it was so weird! But so tasty! I wish I had leftovers to share with you for lunch!”

Without picking up on her cousin’s disdain, Callie continued to lighten the mood with her cheerful stories and overall personality, and Marie was in much better shape by the time she got to school. With the addition of some top marks for their class’s previous week, she was in better spirits by the day’s end and figured as long as she could balance her responsibilities with everything else, there was no harm in doing something that made them both happy.

Before they even knew it, the day came for their audition and their routine was up to each of their high standards for each other. Auditions were after school let out and being held in the auditorium, a big dark room with lots of chairs and a huge stage with spotlights and raggedy old curtains and everything! Marie had been in there twice so far for different school events, but never for long and never when it was so empty, and never from behind the stage instead of in front of it! Callie had put their names on the audition sheet almost as soon as it went up, so they would be the third to go. The first act was an angelfish from Callie’s grade who could play the piano, and next would be a sea urchin from the grade between them doing a comedy skit. They could hear the contestants but not see them, which made Marie even more nervous than she already was.

“Hey, don’t be scared,” Callie told her, when she noticed Marie’s wide eyes and hand shaking quirk that had become her coping mechanism for a lot of negative emotions or situations. “It’s just an audition, so not a lot of people will be watching anyway. Just relax and do everything how we practiced and it’ll all turn out fine.”

“Yeah,” Marie said and sighed. “I just…I don’t know if I want that many people looking at me. I’m afraid they won’t like me.”

“They’ll love you! You’re so cute and talented, how could they not!?” Callie exclaimed, squishing her cousin’s cheeks and rubbing their noses together. Marie giggled and swatted her cousin away.

“I’ll be okay, I think. Just don’t mess up or go too fast or slow like you do sometimes!”

“I will do my best, and you will too, and that’ll be the best we can do!”

Marie smiled a little, even though she was still kind of scared, and took a deep breath to prepare herself as their names were called off the roster and Callie grabbed her hand to tug her out onto center stage with such enthusiasm that she went along willingly. The spotlights right in their faces made Marie squint after being in the dimly lit backstage area, but Callie seemed right in her element with her habitually bright eyes and smile.

“Good evening, ladies and jellyfish! I’m Callie and this is Marie, and we’re the Calamari Cousins of Calamari County, and today we’ll be performing an original piece composed and choreographed entirely by the two of us!” Callie introduced as practiced into one microphone on a stand and then lowered it enough that it should be able to pick up their voices as they sung, even if they would be moving all about.

Marie looked at the judges but then quickly averted her eyes and took a deep breath, shaking off all the anxiety she could through her hands. Callie placed a hand on her shoulder and told her it would be just fine before counting them off to start.

With a little hesitance at first the two began their song and practiced dance in perfect synchronization, their voices both gradually growing in volume and confidence as they fell into the familiar routine and grew in assurance as they did. With a rather rocky start, they both felt a little uneasy about the impression they were leaving, but Callie’s reassuring movements and vocalizations inspired Marie to let go of the fears and not dwell on the lyrics they may have already missed peak performance on. Rather, she and her cousin were both moved to not cling to what they couldn’t change, but rather aim to prove themselves and do their best with each new lyric or dance move.

Their song about new starts and the obstacles there were just to get to a good place to begin closed with the two of them holding hands and posing for their audience, Callie sporting her wide-mouthed and gap-toothed beam and Marie in her subtler eyes and mouth closed grin. They stood statue still and imagined what the cheering audience would sound like, even if the teachers conducting auditions weren’t allowed to applaud them for a taste of that glory in advance.

“Outstanding!” Ms. Star said after a pause. She was the school’s assistant principal, a kindly sea star who knew almost all the kids in their small town school by name. “Alright, girls, so now our judges will give you a brief critique to take home with you, but you won’t know until Monday afternoon whether or not you made it in or not, and from there we’ll give you instructions for rehearsal and performance days and times.”

“Sounds great!” Callie exclaimed, squeezing her cousin’s hands tight before letting go and standing at attention. Marie wobbled a little on her shaky knees but did her best to look as put together as Callie.

“Well, first of all may I just say that we were all blown away? To think the two of you composed and choreographed that whole piece on your own! Did you have any help at all?” Mrs. Jewel inquired. She was an elderly sea urchin who taught a music class and ran the school's drama club.

“Nope! It was all us! We’ve been working on it forever, right Marie?”

Marie was frozen a little and tried to swallow the lump in her throat and answer aloud, but ended up just having to nod when she couldn’t get her constricted throat to open enough to let any words out.

“Fantastic,” Mrs. Jewel said and her counterpart, Mr. Patella, nodded in agreement before taking their shared microphone to speak.

“I think it would benefit you both to work on your presence on stage. A little more confidence and showmanship could balance out your rough start, which could also use a little polishing. Other than that, however, you both did-oh my!” Mr. Patella and the other two jumped up to get a view of the stage, where Marie staggered a little and reached out in vain for her cousin before falling forwards on her face, right on the hard stage floor.

“MARIE!” Callie shouted and fell on her knees at her cousin’s side, grabbing her shoulders and turning her over onto her back.

“Give her some space, Callie,” Ms. Star directed in a firm voice as she rushed onto stage and put herself between the two cousins. She instantly set in, checking the green squid’s vitals to make sure she was breathing and not having some kind of episode or attack.

“What’s going on? Marie! What happened to Marie?!” Callie begged hysterically, trying to see around Ms. Star and the other two teachers who had joined them on stage.

“Her vitals are good. Get me a wet towel and call the nurse to see if she’s still here,” Ms. Star instructed and the other two adults jumped into action to fulfill her request.

“What’s wrong?!” Callie begged, grabbing Ms. Star’s sleeve desperately, tears filling her terrified eyes.

“She’s unconscious, Callie, but don’t worry,” Ms. Star finally acknowledged the trembling girl behind her and let her come to her cousin’s side, where she immediately took Marie’s limp hand and held firmly. “Marie is going to be okay, she’s just passed out. I think she may have had stage fright or performance anxiety or something that caused this, or else something that a doctor would have to find out about. Do you know if she has asthma or seizures or anything at all?”

“I don’t…no, I don’t think so,” Callie said, trying to come down from her panic. 

“She’s breathing fine now and everything, so I don’t think so, but the nurse or her doctor will be able to know for sure. Do you know the Hotaru’s home phone number? That would be very helpful if so.”

“Y-yes, I do,” Callie whimpered, trying to relax but unable to stop worrying until she saw her cousin revived again. Just at that time, Mr. Patella came back in with the nurse hot on his tail pushing an empty wheelchair. They carefully lifted Marie from the stage down into the chair and Callie took the steps down two at a time to catch up with them. Mrs. Jewel met them halfway down the aisle between seats and handed a damp wash cloth to the nurse, who put it on Marie’s forehead, making the young inkling stir but not wake.

“Callie,” Mrs. Jewel said, stopping the pink inkling in her tracks as she tried to keep following the nurse. “I can’t leave the auditions right now for long, and I’m sure you want to stay with your cousin until you know she’s alright. But if I give you my personal phone number will you be able to call me this evening? I’m sure your cousin won’t be up to talking right away, but I have an important message that I’d like you both to hear and a recommendation that I think could help you both.”

“Yeah, I can do that,” Callie sniffled and Mrs. Jewel nodded before reaching into her shirt pocket for a pen and note card that she quickly scrawled her number on. 

“You won’t loose this, will you?” she asked and Callie nodded surely. “good. Take care of your cousin, alright?”

“Yes ma’am, I promise!” Callie sniffled and hugged the sea urchin around her knees before jogging to catch up with Nurse Dahlia and the wheelchair. Once they arrived in the front office, Callie wasn’t allowed in the nurse’s office while Marie was assessed more thoroughly and instructed to call Mrs. Hotaru and catch her up on what had happened. Marie’s mother sounded quite distressed on the phone and insisted the girls wait there to be picked up instead of walking home. Since the Hotarus didn’t have but one car, which Marie’s dad would still be commuting home from work in, Callie knew that meant she’d see her mother here soon too to give the whole gang a ride.

Callie paced impatiently in front of the office before Nurse Dahlia finally opened the door and slipped out before Callie could peer inside, but not before she could hear her cousin’s distinctive wailing through the open door.

“Is she okay?” Callie asked.

“She’s upset right now and in some pain, but she’ll be okay. No permanent damage or anything, thank goodness.”

“What happened?!” She begged for answers. “Can I go talk to her?”

“She’s very upset and I wouldn’t recommend-”

“I can talk to her, even if she’s very very upset,” Callie promised, so much determination in her eyes that the anemone stepped aside to let her by while she waited for the parents to arrive.

Callie rushed in, where Marie sat on a paper covered table with an ice pack strapped to her face, muffling her cries as her tantrum came to an end with her fists only occasionally smashing against her cushioned table of a seat.

“Marie! Are you okay? What happened?”

“I was too scawed!” Marie wailed, baby talking with her nose squished by the ice pack and shaking with a fresh wave of tears. There were some bloody tissues in the trash that scared Callie and she hopped up to sit by her cousin and comfort her.

“Why? Because of what Mr. Patella said?”

“Because of peopew w-wooking at me,” she hiccupped. “You made me do it! You di’int ast if I wanted peopew wooking at me! And I DI’INT!” 

“B-but you never told me that…you didn’t tell me that,” Callie defended and Marie shoved her away a few inches. 

“No no NO!” the younger child fussed, now in full out tantrum mode.

“Marie, why wouldn’t you just tell me that?!” she defended as her cousin got more and more flustered, pushing away any of Callie’s physical advances and kicking her feet backwards against the table.

“Because I di’int want you to be sad wif me!” Marie yelled and pushed Callie off the table so she landed on her butt against the cold tile floor. “I di’int want to disappoint you! I jus wanted to twy and do it fow you but I cou’int! And now I wuined evewything!”

“Marie,” Callie huffed a little, trying to catch her own breath after her fall. She got up with a little wince and brushed herself off before coming to stand in front of her cousin, who was still struggling and fussing like an inconsolable infant.

“Don’t wook at me!” the green inkling commanded.

“Okay,” Callie said calmly and placed her hands over her eyes to block her view of her cousin. She waited patiently as Marie’s wailing slowly subsided to a lighter cry with intermittent hiccups that indicated she was doing her best to calm her lousy temper. “I should have asked if you wanted to do this in the first place,” she sighed, “and I’m sorry I didn’t. I thought this was what we both wanted to do, not just me. I thought you liked singing and dancing and performing with me and that we were going to be famous together someday, but if that’s not what you want, I understand.”

“It is what I want!” Marie defended. “I want to sing and dance and pewform and be famous supah-stahs, I just…I’m just afwaid of so many people wooking at me. I don’t want dem to tink about me bad uw someting. I don’t want to feew wike I’m no good if I mess up even a wittw.”

“Oh,” Callie said and pursed her lips in a thoughtful manner. “Messing up a little happens to everyone, but it doesn’t mean you’re no good at all. It just means you’re normal. Nobody can be perfect.”

“But I’m still scawed of evewyone,” Marie sighed and took on a pouty face. “I don’t want dem wooking at me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t twust evewyone.”

“Do you trust me at least?”

“…Yes.”

“Can I look at you again?”

“I guess so,” Marie sniffled and Callie opened and uncovered her eyes to see Marie on the table, wiping some tears, shaking her hands vigorously to get them off, and repeating the motion. The ice pack strapped to her face was falling off a bit and Callie could see splotches of red from her crying and the beginnings of some bruises on her forehead and nose.

“Will you trust me to help you face your fears and not be so scared to go on stage in front of people?” Callie asked and Marie finally looked up to let both of their teary golden eyes meet.

“I…I guess so,” Marie whimpered, and just then a light knock came as a warning before Nurse Dahlia and Mrs. Hotaru rushed in.

“Oh, my sweet heart, are you okay?” her mother gushed, taking Marie’s tiny hands and holding her arms out to inspect her body all over.

“I bwoke my nose,” Marie said matter of factly, slurping up the spit and snot gathering in her mouth and trying to keep from crying.

“Poor dear,” Callie’s mother awed, coming in and holding Callie’s shoulders for a hug from behind. “Are you in a lot of pain?”

“It’s getting bettew. I wanna go home,” she said, lip quivering ever so slightly.

“Yes, of course honey!”

“Everything looks to be okay now; no signs of concussion or brain damage, and her nose won’t need to be adjusted or anything so long as you don’t bump it or push it in your sleep,” the nurse addressed the growing family and her small office. “Don’t let her sleep more than two hours at a time for tonight, just to be on the safe side, and you can give her whatever normal pain medication you use to help with the discomfort. Expect some nosebleeds and bruising over the next couple of days, but as long as she can be careful and rest up she should be just fine and need no other medical care unless you just personally want a second opinion, Mrs. Hotaru.”

 

“Thank you so much! And are you sure you don’t mind me using the phone number you gave me even over the weekend?” Mrs. Hotaru asked.

“Not at all; I’m here to help with whatever questions I can. I hope you get to feeling better soon, Marie, and take it easy for awhile, okay?”

“Yes ma’am,” Marie nodded gently and hopped down from the tall table, taking her mother’s hand for extra support.

The group filed out into Callie’s mother’s car and the sisters in the front seat swapped home remedy techniques their father Cuttlefish had taught them back in their youth. Mrs. Hotaru confessed that they didn’t have a pediatrician right now and was relieved that the nurse was so capable and able to get Marie patched up and Mrs. Aori told her about an eel friend she had who was a nurse at the hospital and could probably help them find a good doctor when the need should arise.

Callie held her reluctant cousin’s hand protectively all the way home and made her promise to call tomorrow as soon as she woke up in the morning. They arrived at the top of the hill at the Hotaru household just after Marie’s dad pulled up and he came to see what was going on before carrying his daughter into the house.

“Callie, thank you so much for being such a caring cousin and making sure Marie was taken care of,” Mrs. Hotaru said genuinely as she collected Marie’s backpack from the backseat. “I don’t know what I or Marie would do without you, honestly. I know Marie is a tough shell to crack sometimes, but your perseverance really does make you one of the most important people in the world for her.”

“You’re welcome. I love my cousin a whole lot and I always want to be there for her,” Callie said with a little smile and a pang in her heart that reminded her of how she hadn’t been there for Marie before, but she was determined to be now. This earned her a kiss on the forehead from Marie’s mom and a beaming and proud smile from her own mother.

“Thanks again for the ride, sis,” Mrs. Hotaru finished and stepped out of the car.

“Anytime! Keep me updated how my niece is doing this weekend, okay? And let me you if you all need anything at all.”

“Of course,” she nodded and shut the car door to head into the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohh, poor Marie! Sorry for the sounded-out hewwo speak scene there, I just be like that. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Trying to keep this updated regularly, but apologies if that hasn't been or won't be so consistent every week or so. This chapter, as stated at the beginning, jumped ahead a good eight months, so just a heads up that this will be a pretty frequent kind of thing. I've got this fic planned to go all the way up to pretty much the cannon time frame (or at least to the first game) so obviously I'm not gonna go day to day or week to week. A lot of the first few chapters are pretty clustered in time frame, but after that they'll get a little more spread out, so it'll almost be like a different season every 2-4 chapters? Ish? Haven't gotten far enough to know yet, lol.
> 
> Anyway, thanks to all for reading so far! Kudos and comments are always appreciated, but either way I hope any readers are enjoying so far


	4. Recoveries

“So,” Callie’s mom began in her more stern tone as the two got inside and closed the door behind them, “do you wanna tell me more about exactly what happened today? You know Marie better than anyone, so why’d she pass out up there on stage?”

Callie’s bottom lip pursed out involuntarily and when she opened her mouth to speak, a loud wail came out instead of words. Her mother jumped at the cry and instantly knelt down to put her arms around the small inkling’s tense shoulders.

“It’s all my fault!” Callie cried, burying her eyes in her mother’s shoulder. “I knew Marie was nervous but I still made her go out on stage and sing with me anyway, and I didn’t even ask if she was ready! I feel like a terrible cousin; I let Marie down and now she has a broken nose!”

“No, no, no, hunny, this is not all your fault! Even if you knew she had stage fright you couldn’t have predicted Marie would pass out from it!”

“I made her pass! Out!” Callie enunciated, as if repeating her mother would better clarify the depths of this misfortune.

“Sweetie,” her mother stopped her, hushing the poor girl and rubbing her back in a soothing way only a mother would be able to, “this is not your fault! I know you feel guilty and sorry that Marie got hurt, but she’s okay, and now we know! I’m sorry we had to find out Marie had stage fright in such a scary way, but we won’t let it happen again, and you were right there with her the whole time when she was passed out and getting checked on and everything, and Marie and Mrs. Hotaru are both so grateful for you being there, I promise.”

“But what do we do? Marie’s nose is broken forever! And how do we keep it from happening again?”

Callie’s mom stifled and laugh and tried to keep serious and comforting. “No, hunny, her nose isn’t broken forever; it’ll get better and she won’t have to wear a bandage and it won’t be crooked or anything; she’ll just need to be extra careful for a while not to hit her face on anything.”

“So her nose will get better…but what about stage fright?”

“Well, I don’t really know that one for sure, squiddo, and I don’t think even Marie does. Fear is a tricky thing; sometimes when we face our fears we can overcome them, but other times they might just scare us even more or keep scaring us the same amount. And every fear needs to be faced a different way. I can’t tell you how we’d help little Marie with stage fright since I’ve never had it, but I’m sure as long as she knows we’re here for her and we love her no matter what, that’s a really good start.”

“Mrs. Jewel…” Callie started, sniffling once more and then rummaging through her pocket for the phone number she’d been given. “Mrs. Jewel told me to call her later…I wonder if she knows how to handle stage fright fear?”

“I think she’d be the absolute best person to ask about that. Will you let me call her for you?”

“Yes please,” Callie said, pouting and extending the phone number to her mother. She was still a little upset, but now hopeful that she had the right connections to do something to improve the situation. While she was excited to hear any advice Mrs. Jewel had to offer, she figured her mom could handle the conversation a little better. Callie always felt a little intimidated talking to most adults, especially if she didn’t know them so well, and understood that her mom would just have a better comprehension of what was going on.

Callie started out going to her room to change out of school clothes and into something more comfortable for the night, but came back in a much better mood once she heard her mom’s lighter and happy tone over the phone. A smile finally reappeared and spread across the young inkling’s face as she ran down the hall to try to listen in on the remainder of the conversation. Her mother was “Mhm” and “Oh yes” and “That sounds great!”ing intermittently with the mumbled phone sounds coming through the handheld telephone and Callie was back to her bubbly self, jumping up and down with anticipation.

“Well, I will most definitely keep it on the down-low until we know if this is going to happen like that, but I definitely appreciate you doing this either way, and I’m sure we can figure something out if you don’t get approval…oh, haha! That is true; I’m so excited! Thank you so much, Linda; take care and enjoy your weekend!”

“What’d she say? What’d she say?!” Callie begged, tugging on her mom’s pant leg as she hung up the phone.

“It’s a secret,” her mom said with a smirk and Callie guffawed. 

“Tell me! TELL ME!!”

“You heard me; I had to promise Mrs. Jewel I’d keep this on the down-low. She has a plan to help Marie without making her feel singled out, but until she knows if the school will approve it she doesn’t want you or anyone else getting your hopes too high.”

“But I’m on the down low!” Callie offered, lying down on her stomach and flattening herself against the hardwood floor. “See? You can tell me! I’m even downer and lower than you are!”

Her mother laughed so hard at that she ended up doubled over, joining her daughter on the floor after a moment. “Alright, I’ll tell you a little, but just promise you won’t say anything to Marie about it or anyone from school.”

“I promise! And anytime I’m tempted to tell someone, I’ll stop drop and roll down low until the urge to spill the beans is all gone!”

“Alright, sounds like a deal,” she giggled, “so Mrs. Jewel, being a drama teacher, has seen stage fright more times than you can count! She told me her daughter even had stage fright when she was a kid and got really scared or froze up when she was on stage. So she knows a lot of ways to help people like Marie try to overcome their fears, just like I was saying earlier. If it doesn’t work or Marie doesn’t want to do it, you’ve got to promise me you won’t be upset with Mrs. Jewel or with Marie, okay? It’s nothing either of them are doing wrong, just that’s how things work out sometimes.”

Callie nodded vigorously. “I promise. I really want to be famous with Marie one day, but if she can’t do it, I understand.”

Her mother beamed with pride and kissed her daughter on the forehead before pushing herself up from the floor and helping Callie up too. “Dream big, squiddo. Always dream big and always stay positive. Hang on to that as tight and as well as you can, and if things don’t work out, just keep understanding that it’s not always meant to be and that it doesn’t mean there aren’t other big dreams out there that are meant to be.”

“I think I am meant to be your daughter, and Marie’s cousin and best friend, and also a singer,” Callie said and her mom hugged her tightly and sniffed a tear away.

“I think you are, too.”

… 

Craig Cuttlefish had always been a willing audience to either of his granddaughters’ tall tales or life narrations or whatever they had to talk about, so Callie delighted in his captivated comments and reassurance when she called to recap all of the big events of today and the few weeks practice leading up to it. He agreed with Callie that it was a great idea to trust Mrs. Jewel’s coaching abilities and it would all turn out okay either way. Marie’s father had told her once that her optimism was such a beautiful thing, but it could be a blessing or a curse. Callie always just rolled with the punches and knew things would turn out for the better- they always had!- and his comment had perplexed her at first in the beginning of their school year. Now, however, she had just decided that everybody had a different kind of life. Marie’s parents and Marie too, it seemed, had the kind of life where they wanted be prepared for anything, good or bad. Callie, on the other hand, was determined to live in a way where life just had to be prepared for her and all of the good outcomes she planned to collect throughout her years.

After their gramps, Callie went to help her mom make dinner and wash dishes. Mrs. Aori seemed just as excited about what Mrs. Jewel had to bring to the table, saying that she had actually taken classes with her back in grade-school and she really was a miracle worker. Callie responded with a curious “How long do sea urchins even live?” To which her mom responded with a splash of water in her daughter’s face. 

“Soap for dinner,” Mrs. Aori snickered and Callie stuck her tongue out in a poorly disguised grin. 

The Aori household was a lively one the rest of that Friday evening, Callie’s father coming in to find his two favorite ladies putting together some homemade pizzas. Callie’s mom twirled dough in the air in a far from excellent way and Callie was going to town on topping an already stretched disk with beef crumbles, diced tomato, and-

“Pineapple? It can’t be!” Mr. Aori exclaimed dramatically.

“Daddy! Just try it this time; it’s so sweet a delicious!” Callie delighted, raising her doughy and sticky hands to hug her father, but he shrunk away and handed her a hand towel before accepting the embrace.

“Oh no, your mom has finally converted you to the dark side,” he sighs and shakes his head in dismay.

“It’s delicious!” Mother and daughter exclaim in unison in a way that couldn’t get the most solemn person not to grin.

“It’s disgusting,” Mr. Aori stuck his tongue out and Callie put a chunk of pineapple on it, which he chewed happily. “On pizza. On its own, it is delicious.”

“Well don’t worry, we’re making a pineapple-free pizza just for your sake,” Mrs. Aori smiled and shared a quick greeting kiss between pizza twirls and near obliteration. 

“How did I get so lucky?” He asked rhetorically with a bright smile from ear to ear, almost identical to Callie’s.

… 

On Saturday morning, bright and early, Callie called up the Hotaru residence and asked how Marie was doing, wondering if she could go over and play since it was so nice outside. Marie’s mom kindly answered that Marie was still sleeping, since she’d had to be awoken periodically last night, so she’d probably not be up to it at the moment.

“You can always try to pull her out of bed,” she said, “but I’d feel awful if you had to sit through another of her tantrums. I’m sure she’ll be a grouchy grump whether she’s in bed or up and about today, anyway.”

“Oh, please, Auntie Hotaru, she’s my cousin and I couldn’t let Marie miss such a perfect sunny day for anything! And I’m sure I’ll be capable of getting her out of bed; I have my ways,” Callie says with a not so subtle hint of deviousness. 

Mrs. Hotaru laughed a little and nodded to herself. “I know you do. Well come on over, then, and I’ll even have your uncle make some pancakes, maybe.”

“Yay! I’ll see you soon; thank you!”

Callie took her bicycle and rode down the way to the Hotaru household, having to walk it the final stretch to the top of the big hill they lived on. She invited herself in and said good morning to her aunt and uncle before bee-lining down the hallways to Marie’s room, where she found her cousin snoozing upside-down and lying on her stomach, sprawled on the little futon with her head cushioned sideways on a stuffed anemone. After relishing for a brief minute at the peacefulness of her sleeping cousin, Callie decided to gently awaken the young inkling as she best knew how.

“MARIIIEEE! WAKE UP! The sun is up and you! Should! Be! Too!” Callie chanted excitedly, hugging Marie awkwardly due to her bad stomach sleeping habit and giving her either a little shake or a light squeeze with each word.

“Mmmm, I’m not the sun though,” the green inkling fussed, burying her face into Callie’s underarm as best she could with the bandaging on her nose.

“But you’re my sunshine! My shining sunshine… you make me happy~ when skies are grey!” Callie sang while Marie groaned and tried to make her cousin be still and cuddle her or at least stop shaking the poor tired thing. “Oh how I love you~ my precious cousin! Won’t you be, awake now and play! Huh! I saw the sunshine! In your smile!”

Marie tried her best to conceal the grin her cousin almost always put on her face, but it was a lost cause once Callie spotted that her efforts were working. Though Marie tried to wriggle under the covers or out of Callie’s arms, her cousin was quicker and stronger and easily took her window of opportunity to engage Marie in a tickle frenzy. Marie’s giggles mixed with complaints as Callie gained the upper hand. Marie’s eyes got lighter as the tiredness fell off her face, and she finally sat up on the futon and pushed Callie to the side playfully.

“Don’t you know I had to stay up all night almost? I need my beauty sleep, Callie,” Marie pouted.

“No you don’t; you’re already beautiful!”

“Even with my face all funny?” Marie gestured to the now purplish bruise around her right eye and cheek where she’d face-planted the hardest on stage.

“Absolutely! Now hurry up and get dressed, because your dad made pancakes and nobody wants to eat breakfast with squid in silly pajamas like that,” Callie side eyed Marie’s tacky polka dotted muumuu and her cousin gave her a dry look, but did get out of bed and start picking out some good outside play clothes for the nice warm day.

After sitting down with Marie’s parents for breakfast, the girls made there way outside, where Marie instantly took a seat on the back porch with her legs and feet dangling down through the rails around the porch. She flopped onto her back and sprawled her arms above her head and closed her eyes with a content grin on her face.

“Hey! Lazy tentacles! Don’t lay down! Don’t you know if you lay down right after you eat you’ll turn into a sea cow?” Callie exclaimed in her youthful high pitch.

“But the sun feels so good; I want to take a nap. That sea cow thing is an old wives’ tale, don’t you know?”

“Well, maybe not a sea cow, but you’re going to get a tummy ache if you’re just laying there. Get up and play!”

“Just give me like two minutes,” Marie whined, settling into as comfortable a position as she could on the wooden porch.

“Hmm, alright,” Callie agreed reluctantly, side eying her cousin before brightening in expression as an idea dawned on her. She took off the baseball cap she was wearing, her long black tentacles slipping out of the hole in the back and falling halfway down her back when not held up. She set her hat overtop of Marie’s face so that it covered her eyes and Marie didn’t stir the slightest. “Hey, don’t fall asleep, okay? Count to one hundred twenty or as high as you can before that if you can’t count that high. I learned last week that’s how many seconds are in two minutes, so that’ll be your two minutes, and I’m gonna go hide and you come find me when you’re done counting.”

“Hide and seek?” Marie clarified, muffled by the hat.

“Yep! So you better not fall asleep or I might be hiding forever!”

“Oh no! I don’t want that! One, two, three…” Marie continued counting aloud and Callie jumped with excitement and made a run for it down the hill and towards the woods.

Once she was a few feet inside the shade of the trees, not stopping to shout for if the coast was clear in the woods this time as to not give away her position, she surveyed the area for a good place to hide. After a quick scan of the area, she chose a tree with some branches pretty close together and started up it. Callie was quick and accurate in her branch choices scampering up the tree and stopped the ascent once she got to a thick branch with a nice little crook she could sit in, about ten feet above where Marie’s natural line of site would be.

She listened closely for Marie’s counting, but couldn’t hear a thing until her cousin got to the end, where she shouted “120, ready or not here I come!” at the top of her lungs. Excitement and slight nervousness struck Callie, making her jittery and gave her the extreme urge to giggle or yell in glee, but she’d save those sort of clues for if Marie was having trouble finding her after a while.

Meanwhile, Marie was invigorated by the game and had no trouble now getting up from her lazy sprawl and hopped down the side of the porch, not bothering to go over to the steps, and ducked down to check in the muddy space under the porch for her cousin. The young inkling hummed contemplatively to herself and walked the perimeter of the house, making sure to check every nook and cranny or potential space big enough to fit a young inkling. She didn’t even overlook the spooky or spider-webby spaces under the house or in the garden shed. With no luck there, Marie checked the deep ditch in the front yard to be sure before heading to the woods. She walked carefully and slowly down the hill, making sure she wouldn’t trip and potentially hit her face again. Along the way, she kept her eyes darting around the garden and yard for any sign of movement. The spacious yard was mostly empty space apart from the garden, which was poorly neglected this year and not too luscious to hide in anyway.

“YOO-HOO!! ANYBODY THERE?!” Marie called into the forest as she waited at the edge of the tree line, as per tradition.

“Nope, nobody here,” Callie replied in a fake voice, giggling to herself at her own comedy genius.

“Okay, guess I’ll leave then” Marie hollered back slyly.

“No!”

“Ah-ha!” Marie exclaimed and sprang into the forest, looking left and right and all around for her cousin. “Where are you?”

Callie, just within eyesight of her cousin, hugged the tree to keep herself from shaking with excitement and all but held her breath. What a funny thing it was to see Marie and be so scared and so excited of her looking up and seeing her! Hide and seek was one of their favorite games and always got Callie’s ink pumping with excitement and fear alike of being found.

Marie wandered in a step at a time, circling just about every tree 360 degrees to see if Callie was behind one. It was kind of funny watching her cousin aimlessly circling from above, and the fact that she was trying to be quiet made it an even harder feat than normal for Callie. As Marie got deeper and deeper into the trees, soon circling and passing right by the one Callie was in, Callie became more and more excited, finally unable to contain a light squealing giggle. Marie turned back and started looking around frantically until finally her eyes ventured upwards and spotted Callie overhead.

“Yes! I found you!”

“Then come up here and tag me! Or else I’m not officially found,” Callie challenged, smirking at her younger cousin who gave her a tight lipped grimace in response. 

Determination wandered onto the younger inkling’s bruised face in no time at all and she tried climbing the tree to where Callie was. Her trek took much longer than her cousin’s had, since Marie was so cautious and precise with her choice of branches and also a good couple of inches less vertically inclined than her 30 month older cousin. Soon enough, however, she was just within reach of Callie, but Callie swung around to an opposite side of the tree and quickly started making her way down, only to slip off and fall the second to last branch before the ground. She landed in a crouch, but not without hitting her knees against the base roots of the tree, grimacing and biting her lip so she didn’t yell. Marie gasped and climbed back down carefully to join her cousin on the ground.

“Callie, are you okay?” Marie asked.

“Yeah, I just scraped my knees,” Callie said, trying to keep an even tone even though her eyes were welling with tears a bit.

“Oh no! should I go get a bandage? Do you think you can still walk? Should I tell mother to call an ambulance?” Marie fussed, distressed by the tiny beads of blood gathering on one of Callie’s knees.

“No, silly, I’m okay,” Callie sniffled, wiping some stray tears with the back of her hand, “it just hurts.”

“Oh, my poor cousin!” Marie swooned, placing a little kiss on Callie’s knee, just next to the new scrape. “There! It should be better soon! I hope you’re okay.”

“Yeah, I’ll just have a bruise and we’ll be matching, haha,” Callie tried to make light of things, “but at least mine isn’t on my face.”

“Yeah, lucky you,” Marie scowled, mood instantly dry since she saw she needed not worry over Callie.

The girls continued their games and playing, forgetting all about the embarrassment and trials of the day before. Even with her cheeks in black and blue, Marie smiled and enjoyed the sunshine and warmth of the nice spring day all the way up until evening. Sunday was Marie’s work day with her dad, planting and weeding the garden, and Callie would be doing chores and homework, so they said their goodbyes for that night with the promise of the walk to school on Monday. Marie had all but forgotten about school and tensed up a little bit with its mention, but Callie was quick to reassure her it would be fine and that her black eye just made her look tough, so nobody would pick on her anyway. Even if they did, Callie was tougher than any first grader who might dare to make her cousin feel bad even a little.


	5. Persistence

“Welcome to stage behavior 101!” Mrs. Jewel introduced herself to the eclectic group of elementary schoolers of all age and species by writing her name on the dry erase board at the front of the room and the title of the pseudo class underneath it. “So, all of you are either here because you’re going to be in the drama club after the summer, the talent show next month, or want to be in one of the two sooner or later. We’ve only got five official meetings of an hour each before I have to turn you all back over to your regular classes during this hour, but I intend to make the very most of our time together! In that amount of time, I’d like to help each of you understand what the stage is and what kind of presence you should hold on stage, how to overcome stage fright, how to get into character or project, both audibly and emotionally, and a few of the terms and phrases you will hear on stage and off. My classes are more centered on acting and dramatic performance, but I have some useful information that I think all of you can gain something from to take into whatever form you please. To start us off, I’d like to go around and say your age, not your name, but your favorite thing to see outside. It can be an object, an animal or insect, a structure…whatever comes to mind. Who would like to start?”

Two or three of the children had hands that shot up instantly, Callie being one of them but retracting her hand when she saw the fear briefly grace Marie’s face beside her. Mrs. Jewel decided on a tuna the age of ten to go first, who announced his favorite outside thing to be a car. She went zig zag across the three rows of five children, nodding in approval for all the answers that ranged from ants to grass to windows and more. Callie proclaimed her favorite thing was the undomesticated sea snails that stayed in some of the fenced in fields just outside of town and Marie said that her favorite would be flowers, specifically water lilies. 

After everyone had done their favorite things introduction, Mrs. Jewel called forth an anemone boy named Ethen who was 8 years old and liked sidewalks.

“Now, Ethen has been in my drama class since his first year here and in two plays, so I’m calling him up to help demonstrate what I’m doing with this exercise. So, we’re all going to have to act out our favorite things we said from outside. If you need to change your choice that’s okay, but the challenge is to have to go with the role you were given, or rather chose for yourselves. Ethen, would you like to give it a whirl? I didn’t tell him I was going to do this to him, so he’s got to work with this challenge just like all of you do.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t have said sidewalk if I knew I had to be one. This lady’s gonna walk all over me!” Ethen said and a giggle floated through the room.

“Do you need to change it?”

“Nah, I can do it!” The cocky anemone proclaimed, and laid flat on the on the floor. He took two fingers and began making a stepping motion across his side to buy himself time before thinking of a more creative approach. He raised a select few of his tentacles one at a time and made whooshing sounds while wiggling them.

“What’s he doing?” someone in the front row whispered at the kind of volume only grade schoolers could call a whisper. 

“It’s grass that grows through the cracks and blows when cars pass by,” Ethen answered before making the kind of clop clop sounds of footsteps to follow his finger-people walking.

“Grass doesn’t grow in sidewalks,” Angel, from Callie’s class, argued.

“It does too! Through the cracks,” Ethen said while getting up and taking a bow to follow Mrs. Jewel’s silent instructions.

“But that’s not where it’s supposed to live,” another inkling boy said skeptically.

“Well,” Ethen shrugged, and Mrs. Jewel took the reins and finished his sentence. “Life finds a way. Even if it’s not easy or where something or someone is supposed to live, every living thing is persistent enough to hold the capability to survive and thrive in any of condition. During everyone’s recess today, I’d like you all to find some grass in the sidewalk somewhere. Don’t pick it or step on it, since it’s life is hard enough already, but just find some and tell it you’re proud of it for persisting.”

“What’s ‘persisting’ mean?” a sea star about Marie’s age asked.

“Persisting means trying and failing, but then trying again. It means not giving up when things are hard, and maybe even continually failing, but trying each time to find a success in the end.”

The class picked back up on their exercise after the brief tangent and saw some pretty creative kids shuffling around on the floor like dirt, vrooming or clicking across the room like cars or bicycles, and jumping or popping up like frogs or crops of different kinds. Callie volunteered after observing a few and tied her long tentacles up in a fat bun atop her head before lying down and inchworm-crawling across the floor. She made a kind of squishing noise with her mouth to compensate for the trail of slime she wouldn’t be leaving behind her, and grinned when she evoked a giggle from a few classmates.

“Why is your ‘shell’ on your head?” somebody asked.

“Because my butt isn’t big enough” Callie said excitedly and everyone laughed now. Pleased with her tom foolery, she got up and took a bow before returning to her seat.

“Marie, would you like to go next since your cousin just went? Or wait a little while?” Mrs. Jewel offered and several students turned back towards the duo in the second to last row.

“I, uhh…I’m kind of scared,” Marie admitted.

“That’s understandable. Who else in this room is nervous or scared? Don’t be shy,” Mrs. Jewel prompted, and to Marie’s surprise, several hands slowly raised into the air with her own. “That’s what I thought, and that’s absolutely okay! So something I’m going to have you try, is pretending you’re not scared. That’s what ‘acting’ is. Acting is when you pretend you’re someone else, maybe someone completely different from who you really are, and try to be like that character. Right now our exercise is acting, because you’re pretending to be your favorite outside things. But it can be even more acting put into it than that, because if you’re scared, you can act like or pretend that you’re not. Sometimes when you pretend well enough, your fears believe and stop persisting.”

Marie contemplated this for a moment and wasn’t too convinced. Surely it couldn’t just be that easy, right? There had to be a trick to it…

“The trick is the practice of ‘getting into character’, which means pretending so fully that you believe it yourself,” Mrs. Jewel said, as if reading the young inkling’s mind. That was an intriguing concept, but she still hung back while two more children acted out before timidly raising her hand and standing when Mrs. Jewel gestured her to the front of the room.

Marie walked up in what felt like the slowest and most precise trek of her life and squatted down low to the ground once she was front and center of all the other kids in the room.

'You’re not Marie. You’re not an inkling. You’re a sprout. An itty bitty bit of grass,' Marie’s said to herself in her head and raised one arm straight up above her, then the other, holding them both together in what she hoped looked like a stem sprouting from the ground. 'The sun is shining. It feels good on sprouts like me. It makes me want to grow even more!' She slowly unbent her legs and stood up, keeping her arms at the same height and raising up to meet them so her hands covered her face and she was holding her arms tight against her chest. 'It feels good to grow. I’m not just a sprout anymore; I’m a bud! And I want to be…'

“A flower!” Marie proclaimed aloud as she spread her arms up and away from her, standing tall on her tippy toes and grinning from ear to ear as she bloomed. Froze for a second by the weight of her classmates looking at her and her alone, she had to re-remind herself that she wasn’t Marie. “I’m a flower!”

“And a very pretty one, too,” Mrs. Jewel reassured her, a knowing smile on her face. “thank you for opening up for us today, Flower! You can let Marie come back whenever you’re ready to, so she can take a bow.”

Still smiling, Marie came back to herself and regained her usual posture before giving a little bow and making her way back to the back of the room where she was sitting with her cousin. It felt good to not be Marie for a second; it was a lot of fun to be something else for a little while. She liked being Marie and all, but being a flower was different and exciting! While she was definitely the less adventurous between the two cousins, that didn’t mean she was lacking in vigor for the unexplored by any extent. It was nice, she decided right off the bat, to pretend to be someone or something else for a little while. It was a different feeling, and one she knew already she’d like to feel again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to say thank you all for reading so far! I'd love any input if y'all have any, so drop a comment any time! We're almost done with the young year chapters, and then it gets a little more interesting for sure! So stick with me, everyone, and I promise things will be a little more captivating coming up! I had a lot of groundwork to lay to establish some things that would come up later in the fic, so that's why it seems kind of drawn out here lately, but there's plenty more exciting content in coming chapters, and a lot more time jumping to focus on the good stuff. But as always, thank you all for reading and I'll see you in the next chapter!


	6. Show Starts Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Nice to see the kudos y'all are leaving, and I hope you're enjoying so far! Just this and one more chapter till we're jumping ahead to an older age range and more relatable scenarios, so thanks for reading so far and I hope you'll continue with me and see what's next! :o Enjoy the chapter, and leave me a happy birthday comment if you want to! ;)

“Here’s some!” Callie proclaimed, stopping and squatting down at the edge of the sidewalk that the girls followed to and from school every day. The walk was so familiar, but now they both began to realize all the little things they’d been missing, like the grass persisting in its life and growing through the cracks in the sidewalk. It’d been almost a month since their first class with Mrs. Jewel and the girls were still keeping an eye out for the grass and little weeds that somehow grew through the cracks and made life work, even if it was a little tougher.

Marie joined her cousin and grinned a little, stroking one of the blades of grass fondly. Callie kissed her finger and touched it to the grass before standing back up. 

“You’re doing great! Keep it up!” Callie said, pumping her fist and Marie stood as well and they continued their walk home from school. “So do you think we’ll be able to practice tonight? I think we’re all ready for the big show, but one can never be too prepared with these things, you know!”

“Not tonight; I promised father I can help in the garden tonight. It’s our busiest part of the year, you know.”

“That’s true. It’s so cool that you have a real job, Marie! And you’re younger than me! My dad was saying last night I need to start paying my way around here and I said ‘I’m just a kid! A baby, practically!’ and he said ‘well Marie is even younger and she has a job’ and then I stuck my tongue out at him and he gave me a shovel later and told me to start digging ditches and I told him that sounded like fun and when I started digging a hole he told me it can’t be work if it’s fun and I told him you have fun harvesting with your dad, but I actually wasn’t sure because you don’t talk about it ever. Do you like having a job, Marie? I think it would be fun to pick vegetables, just like it’s fun to pick flowers! Or wild strawberries, even though those are disgusting and seedy if you try to eat them. Do you get to eat a lot of the stuff you pick? Or does your dad sell all of it? Or most of it anyway…”

Callie’s chatter often went on like this, not leaving a lot of room for interjection, but Marie almost preferred it this way. If she could get by only responding to necessary questions she wouldn’t have to worry herself thinking of ways to sound interesting. Callie didn’t necessarily have a better life or more eventful days or fuller personality, but sounding interesting just came natural to her. The world was full of wonder and Callie’s observation of this never failed to leave others with something to think about that they’d never even considered before.

“It’s only two more days away,” Marie said thoughtfully, and Callie quieted herself just enough to hear. She gauged Marie’s face for fear or anxiety, but what she saw was actually bliss, maybe even excitement. Callie was rubbing off on her cousin after all. 

“My mom’s making a poster or something to cheer us on, I think! She wanted to know what our stage name was going to be, and I told her ‘The Calamari Cousins’! That’s still what we’re going with, yeah?”

“Yes,” Marie nodded and grinned at her cousin. “It’s both of our names because we’re a team, and we can each take a better part of each other on stage with us! I get to be part Callie, so I can be outgoing and exciting, and you get to be part Marie, so you can be less clumsy and more focused.”

“I’m not even offended by that because it’s absolutely true!” Callie proclaimed and they both laughed. “I’m still spending the night tomorrow, right? So your mom can finish making our outfits and we get one more practice before the big show!”

“Yep, so make sure not to put off all of your homework tonight so you only have tomorrow’s to do tomorrow!”

“Aye Aye, captain!” Callie gave a solute as they came up on her street corner. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning! And don’t sleep in so you can be on time to walk to school, and then you won’t stay up so late tomorrow either!”

“Aye Aye, captain,” Marie repeated and matched her cousin’s solute before skipping off towards her own home.

Callie’s excitement got her through all of her homework (even the math!) more speedily than usual and she helped her mom make dinner, insisting they have all foods she’d researched to be good for your throat. Callie had taken it upon herself to plan lunches for the both of them tomorrow as well, which Marie was fine with, since she hated having to wake up early enough to make herself lunch. She would bring peanut butter and honey sandwiches and a thermos of warm tea with honey and lemon for school and make Marie eat some nice healthy fruit for their after school snacks rather than the usual chips or sugar or something greasy and delicious. 

Even though they passed right by Callie’s subdivision on the way home, she still wanted to pack her overnight bag to take with her to school so she could keep the excitement in her locker all day! She made a little bag with play clothes for after school, pajamas, an outfit for Saturday morning in case their show outfits weren’t ready, and her toothbrush and comb after she’d finished getting ready for bed. Much like her cousin was doing just a short distance away, Callie laid down that night with a content smile and the last words for the night “only a day and a half away”.

… 

The girls were practically shaking with anticipation through breakfast on Saturday and Mr. Hotaru ended up sending them out to the garden just so they wouldn’t be anxiously waiting around the house until Callie’s parents arrived. With only ten minutes to spare before they had to leave, the girls scrubbed off their dirty knees and fingernails in their quickest bath to date and changed into the intricately designed yukatas Marie’s mom had made them by hand. Her stitching reflected the girls’ unique styles and personalities, with a subtle but beautiful silvery yukata for Marie with accents of lime green, and a silky black for Callie with mainly pink scrolls and swirls, but other bright colors thrown into the blend as well!

Callie’s parents drove all six of them to the school and the cousins went straight to back stage where Mrs. Jewel was trying to keep order among all the grade schoolers. The auditorium was filling quickly with parents and students and extended family that all the students in the show kept trying to wave to from behind the curtains before Mrs. Jewel could put them back where they belonged. 

“Alright, children, settle down! The show starts in ten minutes, so we’ve got to be ready!” the principal said as children of all different ages began to cluster closer to what you might call a straight line. 

Jittery with excitement and anxiety, the principal handed things over to Ms. Star, who began organizing the children into the order they would be going onto stage. Mrs. Jewel came over and knelt in front of Clamantha, who was first on the performance roster, and smiled at her, speaking too softly for anyone else to hear. She did the same thing with the next student when Clamantha was set to begin her performance, and then the next. Callie and Marie were after that, and Mrs. Jewel did the same thing, they assumed, she’d been doing for everyone. A last minute pep talk for some extra reassurance in the spotlight.

“Good afternoon, girls. How are you both feeling right now?”

They both smiled and Callie proclaimed that she was feeling great, and gave Marie’s hand a squeeze to prompt her into talking. “I’m feeling like Marie the inkling,” she admitted.

Mrs. Jewel made a contemplative face that made the girls feel like they’d disappointed her, but then she turned it to a smile. “Well, Marie the inkling, Callie and I are proud of you for coming all the way out here today, but we’re going to have to ask if you wouldn’t mind waiting backstage in a minute here, because we’d really like for Marie the performer to help your cousin with your song today, okay?”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Marie nodded and smiled with a sigh of relief. “I’m gonna get her ready.”

“Bye inkling cousin Marie! I’ll see you after the show!” Callie waved, having learned to play along pretty well after all their classes with Mrs. Jewel. 

Marie squatted down on the wooden backstage floors and tucked her head under her arms. 'You’re not Marie the inkling right now. You’re Marie the super performer. You love the big lights in your eyes and the velvety curtains that are more material than even Mother has ever seen! All the people out there are exciting, not scary, and the stage is your home! Singing…is your destiny!' She lifted her head up, truly beaming now, and stood back up beside her cousin.

“Think you’re ready?” Callie asked smiling.

“I was born ready!” Marie proclaimed, pumping a fist in the air and shaking her hand around. It really had become her favorite way to channel any overwhelming feelings, whether it was one of her angry tantrums or a fit of excitement.

“I’m so proud of you both, no matter what happens out there! You’re going to do spectacularly out there; the crowd is really going to love you,” Mrs. Jewel continued.

About this time, Sam and Ethen, who were doing a comedy skit, were accepting their applause as their act came to an end. They came backstage from the opposite side as the lined up children, as each of them had been instructed, and the principal got back on the microphone. “Up now we have the Calamari Cousins, performing their own original song and dance. Let’s welcome them to the stage!”

Applause started, and the girls grabbed hands and jumped up and down before falling into step as they made their way to center stage, smiling and waving the whole way. Callie reached over and adjusted the microphone. She nodded down to the music instructor, who had worked up a simple piano accompaniment to help them keep time, and the music started. Just like they’d rehearsed, the girls followed their song and dance perfectly, only having to adjust little moves to stay close enough that the microphone could register their voices.

They finished their full routine without a hitch and held their final position long enough that all the audience members began their applause without them even having to take a bow. Both little chests rose and fell quickly and heavily, trying to catch their breath both from the song and from the adrenaline rush taking them over. Finally, they took a bow and got hollers and whistles from all over the tiny auditorium, which felt full of applause even though only a handful of folks from the tiny town was in it. They made their way backstage just like the others, remaining composed as best they could until they were safely far far away from any microphone registries before letting out all the excited squeals and giggles they’d been suppressing.

Mrs. Jewel was continuing her pep talks down the line and their parents would have to stay in their seats until the show was finished, so they just delighted on their own for now, cheering and bouncing with glee. Marie didn’t feel like her inkling self, even though the show was over and she knew it would be okay to now. Rather, she did feel like an inkling, and she did feel like herself, but she also felt invigorated, and brave. She felt like she could do anything, even sing in front of a bigger crowd with a harder song, without having to change who she was completely. She felt like maybe inkling Marie and performer Marie could probably share and get along at the same time, all the time.


	7. Off to the City!

They couldn’t even believe this was real! They were loading overnight bags into Callie’s parent’s car, buckling into their car seats, even popping the mixed CD Marie’s dad had recorded of them into the player, and it still didn’t seem real. With each of their moms in the front seat, and Gramps in the seat beside them, Callie and Marie grinned excitedly as the car shifted to drive and made it’s way from the subdivision to the highway, to the outskirts of Calamari, and soon to the big city! The girls had never been so far as the Battle Zone outside of town where local inklings got to play in the weekly turf war games or practice with their weapons, but here they were passing by the building they’d always begged to go to and getting even farther away to a dream they never thought would come true. 

“Gramps, you smell like crabby cakes,” Callie proclaimed, since she was on the side closer to him.

“Well, you are what you eat I suppose,” the captain answered.

“You’re not made of crabby cakes!” Marie said decidedly and their moms giggled in the front seat.

“Not yet, but at this rate it’s only a matter of time,” their gramps grinned and licked a stray bite of crab from his beard. Callie made an exaggerated “EW!” and Marie stuck her tongue out and scrunched her nose while their grandpa laughed.

“Dad, you’re making the girls car sick,” Marie’s mom scolded.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Hotaru, but calling gramps dad is just too weird for me and my innocent young brain,” Callie said, trying out some of the new phrases she’d been learning during the summer break hours on the SplatTube video site.

Both of the girls moms giggled and Marie’s mom apologized for the weirdness. Everyone was getting settled in for the long ride to Inkopolis and the cousins started a new car game of counting sea cows in the fields on their respective sides of the car. Once they were beyond most of the pasture areas, they switched to counting different colored cars and gramps continually messed with them by spouting random numbers that were not the ones they were supposed to be counting. Luckily, Callie’s mom had time to be their backup counter between her navigational instructions. Even though it was her car, Marie’s mom insisted on driving since she was the more cautious one, just like her daughter in comparison to Callie.

After the two hour car ride, everybody piled out and Cap’n asked them each if they’d brought their land legs, since everyone had to stretch and shake off the bumpy car ride stiffness. Once they checked in, the gang followed some instructions to finding a room that they got into by swiping a little card in front of a door. The hotel was nothing special, just the what they could afford without getting too far from the city, but seeing as how the girls had never stayed in one before, everything about the experience was so magical and new! 

After their performance at the talent show back during the school year, the two girls had been approached by a stingray who told them about the Inkopolis Folk Singing Competition taking place that summer. He had a sister, apparently, who was going to be on the organization committee and said they had a good chance of winning, from what he could judge, and the girls had been begging their parents ever since to let them go. With the condition of a good final report card that the girls made sure happened, they were now here, just a day until and thrilled to the core.

“You’ve spent a lot of time here, haven’t you gramps?” Callie asked, looking out their hotel window and snapping pictures of everything with her camera she could see, just as she’d done the whole car ride over.

“Indeed I have, but not up in the commotion of everything. All the cool squids say I’m not hop enough to go to their stores or anything. Do they even know who I am?”

“It’s ‘hip’, Gramps,” Marie corrected. “Tell us the story again! Of who you are.”

“Yeah! Recount your epic ventures of the ages!” Callie begged and the adults laughed. While her mom would rather she be helping more with chores than being on the computer they’d gotten hooked up, she couldn’t help but admit she was fond of her daughter’s new love of language.

“Well, many years ago, inklings shared the lands with another species called the octolings. I was friends with quite a few when I was a young lad, in fact. But when the great flood waters came and land became more and more scarce, there were disputes between inklings and octolings. They started out just little arguments over who could maintain which pieces of land, but fear is a powerful thing. Nobody knew how much the water would rise, or when it would stop, and a lot of us were afraid there wouldn’t be enough room for everyone. Fights started to break out, and everybody began forming sides with their own species. I myself helped form an army called the Squidbeak Splatoon, which fought for Inklingkind to keep some land during the Great Turf Wars. I don’t want to get too graphic, but we were really in a pickle for awhile. The Octarian army had some fancy schmancy weapons and gear that they certainly didn’t build to play nice with, and all we had was some bamboozlers and a genius inventor with no time to invent! When the Octarians ran out of power, though, we took our opportunity and pushed forward to victory! Not willing to compromise, we had no choice but to banish the octolings altogether. Very few people know what ever happened to them or where they are now, but I’ll betcha they’re always being closely guarded, just to make sure nobody gets any funny ideas about restarting the revolution or something.”

“I can’t believe you were such a hero, Gramps!” Callie mused.

“I can!” Marie combatted and got a mean look from Callie for outdoing her. “And what about where we live? Didn’t you help with that too?”

“That’s absolutely right! Calamari County was one of the main headquarters for the Squidbeak Splatoon for a long time, and it also happened to be where I settled down for a long time to raise both of your moms when they were your age. They called it Calamari County as my choice to name it after your Gramgrams, who you never got to meet unfortunately. But that’s where you girls got your names respectively, after the town I helped build and the inkling who won my heart back in the day.”

“Did our moms ever get to meet Gramgrams?” Callie asked and the adults laughed a little. 

“For a little while, but when it was time to say goodbye at least we had your wonderful Gramps to show us all the ways of the world,” Marie’s mom explained. She was the older sister and had always been a little more sensitive about the topic, since Callie’s mom didn’t ever really have time to get close enough to miss her as much as a kid. Callie wondered if maybe that was why her own mom seemed a little more free spirited and lighter than Marie’s mom.

It was still early afternoon and a beautiful day outside, so their gramps decided he’d take the girls out to explore the city, at least a little. While their lack of popularity or coolness status kept them out of most shops, most of the owners explaining it was nothing personal, just how business worked in those parts, the girls walked around in awe, looking up at the enormous buildings and over at the crazy turnpikes or roundabouts, so unlike the dirt roads or two lane highways they were used to seeing. Downtown was out of the question, since they were too little and Craig was afraid of them getting lost in the crowd, but even just the outskirts held wonder and adventures they’d never seen in real life before!

“Why is it mostly just inklings here?” Callie wondered aloud.

“Yeah, I haven’t seen any sea stars or anemones or fish…and very few of anyone else,” Marie expanded.

“Well, Inkopolis is mostly an Inkling kind of city, since turf wars are such a big deal here! Other critters are welcome here as they please, but the cost of living is a bit pricey unless you plan to have a good job or something. But mostly just the fact that there’s always turf wars going on, any time of day or night, and occasional SplatFests like you’ve seen on TV that draws in young or active inklings.”

“Do you ever play in turf wars when you’re here?” Callie asked.

“Nah, I’m getttin’ too old for that mumbo jumbo, and I’d be kicked out for being too good at it in an instant anyway! Gotta be fair to the other squids trying to make a quick buck.”

“So if you train us, we’ll be the toughest squids on the block and be able to make a living battling it out here, right?” Callie asked excitedly.

“Yes and no…I could teach ya to be some of the best battlers out there, but sometimes being the best and having abilities unlike anyone else is best saved for more important reasons than earning some cash.”

“So you’re saying we should sing at Old Shoals retirement home instead of being famous singers?” Marie wondered and her cousin and Gramps laughed at her.

“I think that would be a splendid thing for you girls to do, but in that particular subject, I also think you both should follow your dreams and be the best squids and the best stars you can be, as long as it makes you happy. Whether broke as a barnacle or living the high life, if singing makes you both happy, well, it’d warm my heart to hear you sing however and to whoever you’d like to. And keep me in mind if you ever need someone to throw down some rhymes for you; I’m a rapping machine you know!” The girls laughed and hooked arms with their gramps to finish their walk and head back to the hotel as the sun began setting.

While they didn’t get to splurge on room service like they’d seen on TV, they did get to order a pizza to the room and jump on the beds and munch on the ice cubes that came endlessly from a big ugly machine down the hall. They wanted to run around the hallways with reckless abandon or see how much of an echo the deep spooky staircase made, but it was getting late fast and their moms didn’t want them to be disrespectful of anyone already turning in for the night. They instead put on a movie and tucked the girls in a the pull-out couch to drift off slowly with.

“Hey Marie?” Callie asked her sleepy-eyed cousin. 

“Hmm?”

“Do you really want to be famous? Or do you just say that to make me happy?”

“Of course I want to be famous, Callie! It would be just the coolest to sing every day with you or be on TV and know there were people watching me without being right in front of me, or even just being brave and doing my best at a singing contest like tomorrow! I get nervous at first, but with you by my side I always know I’ll be okay, and I love the feeling of cheers or happy crowds after I get past the nervous part. I’m just…afraid it won’t work sometimes. But that would never stop me from giving it my all to sing with you and be a real star!”

Callie grinned and did an internal fist pump of victory. “If we both want that most of all, and work really hard together, there’s no way we can fail! We’re gonna WIN that singing contest tomorrow and prove to everyone there we’ve got what it takes! Even if our stardom doesn’t start tomorrow, it will someday, I just know it!”

The girls both grinned and fell asleep entertaining the fantasies of living the high life every day in a place like this, countless fans behind them and their counterpart vocalist beside them. And the rest, is history.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aha! This concludes part 1 (childhood) of Squid Sisters Stories! In the next chapter, we'll jump ahead many years to high school life and teenage years, which will pick up speed for this plot most definitely! Y'all know how the singing competition went, obviously, but it takes awhile after that to get to where they are when coming to Inkopolis, so we'll see some of that next phase throughout the next few chapters! Thanks for all of my kudos and to all of my readers so far, and as always feel free to comment any suggestions or things you'd like to see more/less of, or just in general.


	8. First date?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to high school! Thanks for reading so far, and if you're just jumping in here, also welcome to Squid Sisters' Stories! This chapter jumps ahead several years since last, so if I ever have a little in between backstory piece, it'll be separated from the main story with a "~~" break before and after. From here on we get a little deeper into parts of their life I think a lot of you will find more relatable or relevant, so I hope you enjoy, and as always, thanks for reading!

Marie casually lowered the kickstand and rested her bicycle in the slot on the patio of the new local coffee shop. She’d saved some cash here and there over the summer and didn’t want to waste it now that school was back in and she wouldn’t have many more odd job opportunities. Not at this age anyway, but hopefully next year she’d keep an after school job. 

She took a deep breath and ventured inside the dimly lit shop. She’d been a couple of times over break, but always with Callie and her friends, when she didn’t have to go in alone. Now, however, she was on a solo mission. To have a good cup of coffee, get an essay finished without the distractions of a comfy bed or endless chores at home, and hopefully initiate contact with the barista who she swore made her heart skip a beat. That wasn’t normal, though, and she was afraid to tell anyone about that, even Callie. Not until she’d conducted some additional experimenting. Maybe it was a vibe the barista gave off, or just the excitement of summer and having friends, or at least Callie’s friends, to spend time with that made her a little more jittery or excitable. She’d just have to try ordering coffee bias free a couple of times to judge what she was really feeling or not feeling.

Up at the counter, Marie placed her order for a plain latté and handed over her refillable cup just as she’d planned, paid for her drink and left the change in the cup for tips, and went over to the drink pickup area. The barista in question, as usual, was working the machines and Marie watched in awe as she pulled the espresso shots, frothed the milk, and combined it all with such seamless grace. She hid her stare behind the thick rimmed glasses she tried to avoid wearing in public, but of course she’d run out of contacts just in time for the start of the school year, and tried to grin without looking awkward as her drink came around on the giant lazy Susan counter top.

“Latté for MER-ie,” the barista smiled and Marie’s heart fluttered. She remembered the first couple visits to this place where she had pronounced her name Mah-rie and how it wasn’t till the third time she had finally corrected her pronunciation. Boy, that hadn’t gone badly at all…

~~

“Iced mocha for Mah-rie,” the stunning sea urchin had announced.

“Thanks,” Marie said shyly before receiving an elbow in the side from Callie’s friend Sam. “Uh, umm…” the barista looked back at her. “It’s…Mer-rie, actually.”

“I thought you were one of those Cuttlefish heirs or something. It’s Cala-mah-rie county, isn’t it?”

 

“Yeah, but…my name’s a little different, I guess? I mean, that’s how everyone else says it, but if you’d rather say Mah-rie, that’s, uh…”

“If it’s not your name, it’s not your name. Which means I’ve got an iced mocha for MER-ie and you’ve got one less mispronunciator to worry about,” she winked and Marie felt like she’d been one hit splatted. 

~~

Flash forward two months later, and every visit, without fail, had yielded a drink for MER-ie. Other than that, no further advances had been made with Cory, as her nametag proclaimed, but the butterflies still hadn’t quite settled in Marie’s stomach. She hadn’t really explored romantic feelings thus far in her life and wondered if it was just teenage hormones kicking in that made her feel an attraction to someone, and maybe it was just chance that it happened to be a girl she had her first crush on, but there was still some worry and excitement alike at the prospect that this was just who she was rather than a phase. 

Thoughts like this ran through her mind as she went for the first sip of latté, but gulped more than intended, thus burning her tongue and causing her to cough and choke on the hot beverage. Foamy coffee spilt onto her white shirt and she held her breath, trying not to cough or cause more embarrassment before she could get outside away from Cory and another employee asking if she was okay and offering her a napkin. She kept her composure, other than the hot blush on her cheeks, and slipped the coffee cup with the lid closed tightly into the drink carrier pocket of her backpack, mounted her bike, and sped off to the safety on somewhere not so public before she made any more a fool of herself. 

So much for either of those goals today, she thought, speeding down the road towards home, still fighting back the choke in the back of her scorched throat.

Meanwhile, Callie was still at the high school finishing up a tennis match in the gym. While most of her teammates dragged themselves to the showers, Callie bounced from foot to foot, waving her racket like a victory flag before skipping towards the locker room with the others.

“I don’t get how you’re not beat; those guys were not going easy on us,” Angel sighed to Callie.

“Did you wish they would have? What fun would that have been?! And we won, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, but at the cost of my last ounce of energy. Homework sounds like a tomorrow problem right now.”

“That was my plan in the first place,” Callie admitted sheepishly. “Anyway, is your sister still planning on going to the Zone for this Friday’s game?”

“Yeah, her boyfriend is gonna go for a couple of turf war rounds and she’s going to cheer him on. Why, you wanna tag along?”

“So bad! I’ve only gotten to do a couple ever and it’s so much fun! But my parents never have the time to drive me and I’m still like 18 months away from even starting driver’s ed!”

“That far? I thought we were the same age and I’m starting next semester!”

“Yeah we’re close, but my academic coach said I need more academic credits before I can do many more electives. Barfaroni! I should be allowed to take P.E. every semester! It’s like they want to prepare everyone for office jobs, sitting in chairs and looking at numbers all day, but I was born for the stage! Gotta keep my youthful energy up!”

“Oh, I don’t see that being a problem at all for you,” Angel laughed.

“Well even still! I’m just hoping I can stay out of detention all year, honestly, because my previously stated youthful energy doesn’t sit right with all the teachers, and I have some sport or another just about every day of the week!”

“Girl, are you crazy? I feel the burn just from twice a week!”

“Well guess my burn is just hotter than yours,” Callie winked and stuck her tongue out and Angel chortled and punched her in the arm.

“Ow, my knuckles! Callie, you’re so buff, ooohh,” Angel fake fawned and the two laughed hard enough to draw some glances in the locker room.

“But yeah, let your sis know I’m totally willing to third wheel it up if she wants an obnoxious sophomore to make Dean keep it PG, or at least 13. Hah!”

“I’ll def drop her the memo,” Angel promised and collected her things. “See you in class tomorrow, k?”

“Sure thang, Ang!”

“Still not catching on, ya goof,” Angel rolled her eyes and headed out of the locker room. Callie herself finished stripping off her sweaty gym clothes and got into something for the rest of the day at home. Everybody was still on the “new school year new opportunity for good grades” kick, so nobody really wanted to hang out anymore other than at school or on the weekends. It was kind of disappointing, because she always came into the semester excited for socializing and ended up getting almost less than that of summer break.

At the door headed out of the locker room, however, Callie was met with Xanther Dae, a crab from today’s opposing team. “Heyya, good game today. You had some pretty intense plays.”

“Thanks, but that was nothin really! Just having some fun,” Callie said in her most conceited tone.

“Well you’re good at that,” Xanther grinned. “Hey, listen, I was wondering if you wanna grab a bite somewhere? Losers treat, today only!”

“Mm, tempting. A bite where at?”

“Ah, I’m not picky. Maybe shakes over at Marlin’s?”

“Now you’re talking! And who am I do deny a poor defenseless enemy team the chance to buy me a shake?”

“Hah, not Callie if that’s the case. Come on, I’ll give us a ride,” Xanther said and waved for her to follow him to the student parking lot. She grabbed her bike on the way by and noticed Marie’s was already gone, meaning she hadn’t spent all afternoon studying in the library for once. Good for her! After chucking her own bike in the back of Xanther's pickup, she slid into the surprisingly immaculate passenger seat and buckled up. Callie kept her cool, even if she was getting a little jittery on the inside. She’d never officially been on a date before, and spoken or not, that’s what this was beginning to feel like.

“Okay, so I can’t be the only one who has asked you this so far,” Xanther began while pulling out of the parking lot, “but why not cheerleading? You’ve definitely got the pep, and you’re on just about every sports team you can be, so why not go with the generic one? Not that being a cheerleader is cliché or whatever, just everyone kinda figured…”

“No, you’re so right! And I thought about it a lot, too! I was a cheerleader back before high school, on that little baby team that went on a couple times at the high’s football games,” Callie reminded him. “But it just wasn’t what I loved. Running and adrenaline and more cardio was my style. Don’t get me wrong, cheerleading was a super workout! But just not the same kind I personally enjoy.”

~~

The crowd was going wild and it was a close game with only a little time left on the clock. Calamari High was only behind 2 points, which was the closest they’d been to this particular team all season. Callie was nudged on the shoulder and stood with the rest of the team to make her way out front and center of the tiny crowd that had shown up from her home town for the game.

She followed along with the routine just as she’d been doing all season and delighted in the flips and acrobatics she got to do during and after to really hype up the crowd! As the game started back up, she jumped and clapped her pompoms together all the way back to the bench. They ended up winning and she always liked to think her and the other cheerleaders helped with that by giving the morale boosting routine the team and the crowd alike needed.

As the field emptied out, a couple of the high school players with younger sisters on the junior cheer squad came over to greet their siblings and exchange praises. 

“Heads up, Aori!” one of the football players hollered and Callie turned around just in time to spot the ball hurtling towards her, reaching up to catch it rather than dodging out of the way.

“Nice one! How are you at throwing, though?” asked another player and Callie grinned and tossed the ball back over with great precision and technique. “No kidding! Do you play at home or something?”

“Not really a lot, but I’ve tossed the ole clam around a time or two in my day,” she gloated, blowing on her nails casually like she’d seen on TV. This aroused a laugh from some of the players.

“Well come on the field for a victory lap while we wait for our ride, then,” offered Ray, who Callie almost always rode to and from games with since their parents were good friends and switched out on carpool duty. Callie grinned and happily joined the team for a couple of good tosses. She wasn’t the best, obviously, but held her own better than the team expected. Since then, she’d come early for cheerleading practice and join the football players for their laps around the school and some of their warm up exercises. They all thought she was precious, but Callie thought she was awesome for keeping up as well as she did and really enjoyed the blood pumping and muscles aching in different parts of her body than what cheerleading gave her. She was thinking about trying different sports even earlier in the year, but now her mind was made up that she wanted to try as many different things as she could and choose her favorite before she got to high school.

~~ 

“That’s cool. Well I’m glad, then, because that gives me some real competition in tennis and baseball.”

“You know we’ll be on the same team for any real games, right?”

“Yeah but as long as they have us separate for practice and scrimmages I think we’ll be ready to kick some bass with the neighboring teams.” 

Calamari had only two schools in the whole little town; the grade school and the high school. Most of the students at either were heavily dispersed over the mostly rural county, so if they were to build another school across town, it would likely be a student body of less than 100 at each school, which didn’t really warrant the funds. That also meant that, other than basketball, all of their team games were away. They didn’t have a real football or baseball or soccer field; just the reasonably sized gym in the high school and a couple of smaller fields at the local playground. That also meant there was only one good place to get a milkshake in this town, and boy was it a good one!

Callie was pleased to find Xanther parking rather than driving thru and scooted out of the truck. They ordered at the little bar area and then went to find a seat at one of the worn out booths by the window. Neither had time to make much conversation before their shakes were delivered, and then Callie was too busy tearing hers up to initiate a conversation.

“Any good?” Xanther joked and Callie nodded happily. He lifted an arm and swiped a dollop of whipped cream at the rim of her glass and licked it off the tip of his claw.

“Hey now,” Callie protested.

“I did treat you, this time. I just had to charge a whipped cream tax.”

“Fair enough,” Callie said and then grinned as she took a dollop of her own and dabbed it onto his face. “Then that’s a tip.”

“Thank you, come again,” Xanther chimed and reached his tongue as far up as he could towards the feelers dotted with whip. Callie giggled a little when he had a moment of struggle before getting it off. “But seriously, though, we should definitely do this again. Maybe dinner next time? Friday evening?”

“Dinner, huh? So does that make it…” Callie prompted, giving a mischievous look.

“A date,” Xanther finished and smirked a little. “That’s what I was hoping for, anyway.”

“Well let it be so, then! If we have an official date now, that means I can do all kinds of cute stuff like try a sip of your shake,” she said and plopped her straw into his glass for a swig.

“Ah, girlfriend tax. Nice play,” Xanther mused and Callie got butterflies in her stomach for a second. She’d had those smelly grade school boyfriends that her parents thought were adorable and Marie thought were stupid, where they held hands on the playground and sometimes brought an extra piece of candy for each other on Splatoween or Shellentine’s day, but not a real actual one yet. She reminded herself to keep it cool and be herself right off the bat; she didn’t want to be like any of her friends she’d seen turn into different people as soon as a relationship started.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments always appreciated, but thanks for reading!


End file.
